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Which Bond novel are you currently reading?

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  • SaintMarkSaintMark
    Posts: 7,653
    The007Swede wrote:
    I'm about to start reading Carte Blanche. I've heard very mixed opinions about it so I have no idea if it'll be a pleasant read or not... :)

    Don't listen to others, make your own mind up. Most here have their petpeeves and are difficult to be persuaded differently. O:-)

  • saunderssaunders Living in a world of avarice and deceit
    Posts: 987
    The007Swede wrote:
    I'm about to start reading Carte Blanche. I've heard very mixed opinions about it so I have no idea if it'll be a pleasant read or not... :)

    I really enjoyed and raved about Carte Blanche when I first read it, but in hindsight I can't help feeling a little guilty about enjoying it so much , it's a bit like when you gorge yourself on Mcdonalds. Have to say I'm looking forward to Bond being returned to the 60's in the next novel.

  • Alan007Alan007
    Posts: 406
    In the middle of Icebreaker, enjoying it so far as I have with the previous Gardners
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    Just finished MR today. Great read, but not as good as CR. What I loved most was:
    -The opening with Bond shooting, doing paperwork, and making it clear that the job is mostly sitting and waiting for the next mission
    -The card game and Bond's epic victory.
    -The moment Bond sees that Drax's gyro settings plan the Moonraker's flight for London. Goosebumps!
    -When Bond and Gala survive the cliff falling, as well as the steaming in the ventilation.
    -The ending. Wow was I shocked. It is a great change to the films where he usually ends up with the girl. A great moment where we see a human side of Bond that is often excluded in the films.
  • Samuel001Samuel001 Moderator
    Posts: 13,356
    Doesn't it make you glad that Gala Brand wasn't in Die Another Day, Brady? ;)

    As for Moonraker not being as good as Casino Royale I can't agree. Moonraker was the far better novel I thought.
  • 00Beast00Beast
    Posts: 4,762
    0BradyM0Bondfanatic7 wrote:
    Just finished MR today. Great read, but not as good as CR. What I loved most was:
    -The opening with Bond shooting, doing paperwork, and making it clear that the job is mostly sitting and waiting for the next mission
    -The card game and Bond's epic victory.
    -The moment Bond sees that Drax's gyro settings plan the Moonraker's flight for London. Goosebumps!
    -When Bond and Gala survive the cliff falling, as well as the steaming in the ventilation.
    -The ending. Wow was I shocked. It is a great change to the films where he usually ends up with the girl. A great moment where we see a human side of Bond that is often excluded in the films.

    I finished reading Moonraker yesterday and just got finished writing a five paragraph essay on it in English class, since it was for outside reading. First time Bond has come into my school work! I better get an A+ since it's Bond! Haha.
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    Samuel001 wrote:
    Doesn't it make you glad that Gala Brand wasn't in Die Another Day, Brady? ;)

    As for Moonraker not being as good as Casino Royale I can't agree. Moonraker was the far better novel I thought.
    CR was the more realistic one, and more thrilling for me as my first trip into the literary Bond world. MR was great, don't get me wrong, but I love the plausibility of the plot in CR more, and the extreme realism that accompanies it. Bond mentally breaking at Le Chiffre's torture and his Good vs. Evil talk with Mathis surmount what I found in MR, and why I feel it is the better novel. There are so many powerful moments in CR, as well as Bond finding Vesper dead at her own hand. I love the human moments in both though, like Bond getting absolutely pummeled in the wreck in MR. He's a bloody mess for the latter half of the novel, poor guy. ;)

  • Samuel001Samuel001 Moderator
    edited May 2012 Posts: 13,356
    Unlike the films, Bond often gets a raw deal in each book. The odd one he'll do OK with mind, but it's rare.

    At least Bond should have gone though hell by the end of Skyfall.
  • DB5DB5
    Posts: 408
    I'm sorry, I found MR a total bore. The first third of the book is essentially a game of bridge, not particularly interesting to me. As far as the rest of the book goes, it's not Bond who discovers the plot, it's Gala Brand. And we're supposed to be surprised that there were Germans in the early 1950's who still had Nazi sympathies? CR, FRWL and OHMSS are far more suspenseful.
  • BentleyBentley
    Posts: 267
    Fellow Agents,
    I am currently re-reading 'Colnel Son' and am loving it to bits. Kingsley Amis does a fabulous job by retaining the essence of Fleming whilst injecting the grit that had been lacking in the latter part of the series.
    I'm lucky enough to have a first edition that I bought all those years ago and for me it's up there with FRWL.
    I hope William Boyd has or will read CS - it could give him some real inspiration on how good a Bond continuation novel can be.I also hope he reads the 'Young Bond' series and the fabulous 'Moneypenny Diaries' as both of these collections are infinitely superior to the lacklustre DMC and the truly awful CB.
    Regards,
    Bentley.
  • BounineBounine
    edited April 2012 Posts: 2,599
    I've read Colonel Sun 3 times and while I do like it, each time I find it a bit on the dull, ploddish side. I just can't rave about this book like other literary Bond fans do. Amis is an excellent writer but I think his style, like Faulks is more suited to drama than thrillers. I prefer a few of Gardner's books to CS.

    Non Fleming Bond books Boyd should read are Pearson and Wood.

    I'm currently reading Live and Let Die again.
  • DB5DB5
    Posts: 408
    Currently almost halway through Dr. No. Have read OHMSS, CR, FRWL (all great) and MR (a disappointment). So far DN is on a par with the first three. I'm thinking LALD next. Does everyone agree?
  • brinkeguthriebrinkeguthrie Piz Gloria
    Posts: 1,400
    Just plowed thru all three Moneypenny Diaries. Just brilliant IMO.
  • brinkeguthriebrinkeguthrie Piz Gloria
    Posts: 1,400
    DB5 wrote:
    I'm sorry, I found MR a total bore. The first third of the book is essentially a game of bridge, not particularly interesting to me. As far as the rest of the book goes, it's not Bond who discovers the plot, it's Gala Brand. And we're supposed to be surprised that there were Germans in the early 1950's who still had Nazi sympathies? CR, FRWL and OHMSS are far more suspenseful.

    The description of the inside of Blades and the goings-on is one of Fleming's best pieces of writing IMO. He puts you right there.

    Now Porterfield, bring me a marrow bone. I know they're no good for me, but whatever.

  • Lancaster007Lancaster007 Shrublands Health Clinic, England
    Posts: 1,874
    Just started to re-read all the Fleming's. Finished CR recently and am more than half-way through LALD - and am enjoying them as much as I did when I first read them as a teenager.
  • DB5DB5
    Posts: 408
    Just finished DN and starting LALD. DN was very good, although it kind of jumped the shark with the giant squid!
  • herkherk
    Posts: 4
    I'm restarting Carte Blanche, but will there be a novel for Skyfall? I hope so and looking forward to the next Bond novel next year.
  • Samuel001Samuel001 Moderator
    Posts: 13,356
    No, there will not be a Skyfall novel.
  • BounineBounine
    Posts: 2,599
    Lancaster007 wrote:
    Just started to re-read all the Fleming's. Finished CR recently and am more than half-way through LALD - and am enjoying them as much as I did when I first read them as a teenager.

    Always a great sign Lancaster!
  • DB5DB5
    Posts: 408
    Just finished LALD. All in all I'd say it was okay, though certainly not a top tier novel like FRWL or OHMSS. Very different than the film. Just started TB, so far pretty good.
  • CaptainArthursCaptainArthurs
    Posts: 39
    You Only Live Twice. There are some awful meals in it - live Lobster, poisonous fish...
  • thelivingroyalethelivingroyale
    Posts: 12,837
    I'm going to read Thunderball soon. It's been sitting in my house since xmas doing nothing. I've read 3 so far, GF, MR and CR. I like GF the best.
  • DB5DB5
    Posts: 408
    Half way through TB. But I've also started Carte Blanche ( I was in the library with nothing to read and it was the only Bond book available so I got about six chapters in and got hooked). So after I finish TB I'll finish CB. Both books are quite readable.
  • Risico007Risico007
    Posts: 9,858
    saunders wrote:
    DB5 wrote:
    I wish I knew what it was about MR that people on this site find so great. I'm sorry, I just don't see it. What am I missing??

    I love MR and rate it as one of the best, but then again I don't know why people think the book YOLT is so great, I find it a really slow paced travelogue until the last few chapters. I suppose the thing about these books is we all latch on to different elements and Fleming's writing style changed so much over the series and covered such a vast range of different subjects that it's hardly surprising that our opinions of the books differ so greatly.

    Case in point there are i believe only 2 people in the world who loved Diamonds are forever the novel Myself and the late Ian Fleming. Ifound the novel gritty dark awesome and perfect for Craig's tenure... I'm the only one of course as everyone else finds it a bland novel but C'est la Vie.
  • DB5DB5
    Posts: 408
    I think one of the reasons why I was so disappointed with MR was because of all the hype it got on this site. I had just finished OHMSS (the first Fleming I had ever read) and thought it was out of this world fantastic. I was trying to decide which novel to read next, and almost everyone here was positively gushing over MR. So that's the one I chose for my next Bond. Wow, what a letdown! The card playing which everyone here is so impressed with was done much better in CR. And people are impressed because in the end Bond doesn't get the girl? That's the story of my life. If I wanted to see that I'd just recollect my own experiences. When I read Bond I want to see a man succeed with women!
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    ^
    I love seeing Bond human, and portrayed as such. When characters are relatable they are further a memorable piece of fiction. Fleming took Bond's luck at getting the lady and flipped it on its head, and for that I commend him, especially with how he ended CR. Bond getting the girl every time is so boring. If I wanted to see happy endings all the time I'd read fairy tales, which are faulty in their own right. For Bond, he needs to illicit a humanity.
  • KronsteenKronsteen Stockholm
    Posts: 783
    Just finished No Deals, Mr Bond for the second time. Read it the first time maybe 6-7 years ago, and wasn't very fond of it. It didn't really improve now the second time.

    It is really a quite short story, but the book is still of ordinary length, so I found a lot of parts unnecessary. Especially much thinking in Bonds head which I didn't find interesting or needed for the story. And to use Ireland as location was a little dull, or rather that Gardner didn't manage to describe Ireland properly. Haven't been there and Gardners writing doesn't make me want to visit it...

    Gardner had a thing for English-speaking countries in his Bond books. Scotland in LR, the US in FSS, England in ROH, Ireland in NDMB... England and the US in Scorpius as well, wasnt there? the US in BC and some England in SF as well? It works most of the time, but not in No Deals, and sometimes I miss the more lush, exotic loactions in Gardners books. Hong Kong was a nice location though, nicely described!
  • DB5DB5
    Posts: 408
    Just finished TB. OK, but certainly not great. It's never really explained how Domino escapes from Largo, it's as if Fleming just decided he'd written enough and wanted to wrap up the story. As I said up to Chapter 10 of Carte Blanche. I also borrowed OP/TLD, so if I get tired of Deaver I can read a Fleming short story.
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    Posts: 6,385
    Risico007 wrote:
    saunders wrote:
    DB5 wrote:
    I wish I knew what it was about MR that people on this site find so great. I'm sorry, I just don't see it. What am I missing??

    I love MR and rate it as one of the best, but then again I don't know why people think the book YOLT is so great, I find it a really slow paced travelogue until the last few chapters. I suppose the thing about these books is we all latch on to different elements and Fleming's writing style changed so much over the series and covered such a vast range of different subjects that it's hardly surprising that our opinions of the books differ so greatly.

    Case in point there are i believe only 2 people in the world who loved Diamonds are forever the novel Myself and the late Ian Fleming. Ifound the novel gritty dark awesome and perfect for Craig's tenure... I'm the only one of course as everyone else finds it a bland novel but C'est la Vie.

    I'm just starting DAF. I haven't read it in years. I hope you're right!
  • 00Beast00Beast
    Posts: 4,762
    I'm currently reading Goldfinger, around page 67 or so. Right now, I love it. I don't know what it is, but it is so much better than the movie, which is my least favorite Bond movie; strangely enough, I'm loving the novel right now.
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